Dragons of Siberia (The Dashkova Memoirs Book 7)

by Thomas K. Carpenter

  Then something strange and terrible happened.

  A massive tendril of cloud billowed downward, headed directly towards the hunting party. It came from the back and left, right beneath the angle of the sun. Unless they were looking for it, they wouldn't see it coming.

  The cloud moved with purpose, forming in the sky as it descended. It was white along the sides, but dark gray at the front, bumpy and bulging everywhere. I could hear nothing above the wind whistling across the craggy hilltop.

  I didn't know what it was, but Koryak cupped his hands around his mouth. I shoved the blade against his neck.

  "Don't you dare," I said.

  His black lips bunched. "If not let me warn, then they all die."

  "What is it?" I asked, watching the cloud streak lower, like the massive appendage of some invisible god.

  "Let me warn them."

  I pulled the rapier away from his neck.

  He bellowed his warning into the valley, the words ringing clearly across the vast space. Birds burst from a nearby tree. The line of men and women winding through the trees stopped. Then they disappeared from the path, moving south, away from the cloud thing.

  Koryak made a grumbling cheer, forgetting I was his companion and giving me a gleeful grimace that turned sour once his gaze fell upon me again. This, too, was short lived when he realized the thing in the sky had turned and was headed directly towards us.

  Chapter Five

  Ignoring the blade that I held, Koryak fled south, leaping off the short cliff. He landed roughly, tumbling end over end, coming up snow covered.

  Though the streaking cloud did not look particularly ominous, I took his flight as a warning. After reducing my blade so I didn't injure myself accidently, I followed Koryak over the edge, landing in the same manner.

  I came up with a face full of snow and ran headlong down the hillside, arms pinwheeling. Koryak had a head start, but his path through the deeper snow made it easy for me to follow.

  Halfway down, I lost sight of the cloud behind tall pines. But the scattered blue sky was replaced with a descending mist. Somehow, this seemed worse.

  Koryak stopped at a grove of trees, head scanning all around. He barely noticed me as I came to a rest at his side. His black lips were bunched with concern, his gaze fixed to the foggy sky. The mist covered the upper half of the pines and was lowering itself.

  "It comes," he said under his breath.

  "What comes?"

  He glared at me as if I should know, then said something in his language.

  Before I could wonder at what the word meant, a concussive blast knocked us from our feet. I tumbled against Koryak. Our limbs were tangled as we lay against an ice encrusted embankment. Koryak shook his head and wiped a line of blood from his forehead.

  As I struggled to my feet, I heard the sound of something large moving down the hillside. A tree cracked, then snapped in two. Then, another.

  The massive creature seemed to be moving in our direction. Grabbing my sleeve, Koryak dragged me the other way. We dodged around the pines. More trunks were broken. By the sound, these weren't saplings, or even small trees, but the kind that you couldn't put your arms around.

  I couldn't see it. Not that I dared to look long. Snow was tumbling ahead of its advance. The creature was gaining on us.

  The hill turned uneven. Boulders stuck up from the earth between the pines. They were covered in snow.

  Koryak ran towards an area that looked like it'd been formed by an avalanche many years ago. The hill had broken free and tumbled into the field.

  He threw himself on his knees and started crawling into a gap between the rocks. I thought about going it alone, but the top of a tree snapped in half, throwing snow into the air in a wide arc. A wave of snow crashed past to the east of us.

  I followed Koryak into the space beneath the boulders. Before long, I was on my belly, crawling like a serpent. About two meters in, Koryak stopped. I was staring at the heels of his snowy boots.

  The creature entered the rocky field. The ground shook, and I worried that the boulders might collapse on us, trapping us or crushing us outright.

  In the tiny space, the noises of the beast were deafening. They echoed through our little chamber. It growled and huffed, thundering around the clearing, sundering trees like cordwood.

  The beast slammed into the line of boulders. The reverberation pushed the rocks into the earth. I felt the boulder above me press against my hips and legs, pinning me. Only the squishy mud beneath me kept me from being crushed.

  Before, the tiny space had been a refuge against this creature. Now, it was a tomb and I struggled against it futilely. I didn't care that the beast was waiting outside to gobble me up like a snack.

  I wanted out. Now!

  "Can you go forward?" I pleaded with Koryak.

  Koryak shushed me, though it was hard to hear over the snapping of trees. I clawed at the cold, wet earth, straining until my gloves were soggy with frozen mud. The snow had been melting against the stone, forming a trickle of water that had run down into the space between the boulders. The ground was mostly frozen, but malleable like putty.

  After a few minutes of what sounded like searching, the beast left the area. I was dizzy from my efforts and the way the pressure constricted my chest. Between the small space and the threat of being crushed, I wanted to scream.

  This went on for a few minutes until I was able to calm myself.

  Tapping on Koryak's boot, I asked, "Can you go forward?"

  "Nyet," he said, his voice reaching me through the small space. "Zmey is gone. Can go back?"

  "Zmey?" I asked, repeating the Slavic word. It was an old word meaning dragon. Though I'd encountered many fantastical creatures, even gods, I found this one hard to believe.

  "Yes, Zmey."

  "A dragon. Or drakon," I said.

  "Don't care what call it. Just crawl out," he said.

  "I can't. I'm stuck," I said.

  "If stuck, then we die. Cannot move. Soon night, then freeze to death," he said, matter-of-factly, as if it weren't him that was going to die.

  "Let me think," I said.

  I could use my magic, but I wasn't sure how to do that without causing the boulder to further collapse and kill me. Although that sounded less painful, or at the very least, quicker than freezing to death, I didn't like either option. Already my hands ached with the cold. Once I started shivering, I knew I would panic.

  "Koryak. Can you turn around?" I asked.

  "Nyet."

  The small space wasn't much wider than his hips.

  "Hold on to something up there," I said.

  I grabbed his boots and strained to pull myself forward. The boulder wouldn't let me go. I might as well have been trying to push a steam tank.

  "If magic won't work and neither will physical effort, then it's going to have to be my mind," I said.

  "What?" asked Koryak.

  "Nothing," I said, louder. "I'm trying to figure out a plan."

  "Hurry up. Turning to icicle," he said.

  Under my breath I grumbled, "A little sorcery might warm you up."

  I'd spent many years as the Director of the Russian Academy of Science. Hadn't I learned something from that time to help me now?

  "Give me a lever long enough and I shall move the world," I whispered. "But I don't have a lever."

  "What?" asked Koryak.

  "Nothing," I shouted. "If I need you, I'll say your name."

  How again did I get stuck with my former captor?

  I thought about what I might use, but nothing came to mind at first. As I mentally reviewed the supplies in my backpack, I noted an ache in my hip.

  The rapier!

  "Merde," I said, realizing the rapier was stuck in the mud.

  Snaking my hand down to the area by my hip, I started digging, but got nowhere fast. The glove was too thick. So I put my hand in front of my face and tugged the glove off with my teeth.

  I'd thought it cold before, but
my bare hand against the mud was worse. It felt like the flesh on my hand was on fire. I would have chanced my magic to warm my hand, but didn't want to draw the wolves of shadow.

  After a few minutes I was able to get my fingers on the pommel. The quillion kept me from pulling it out, so I had to spend another ten minutes digging with my fingers. I wasn't sure I could feel them anymore by the end.

  I only had one part of the quillion loose. The other was thoroughly stuck, and my fingers didn't work anymore. Despite the mud, I put them in my mouth to warm them. Even the air from my breath hurt. I hoped I could still use them once I was finished.

  "Do you have any rope?" I asked.

  When he didn't answer, I realized the mistake.

  "Koryak," I yelled. "Do you have any rope?"

  "Yes. You need?"

  Small victories. "Get it out and pass me one end. I need your help getting something unstuck."

  It took him about ten minutes to maneuver around and remove his backpack. Then he passed the end of the rope past his hip and tried to push the thin coil towards me. The futility of trying to push a rope would have made me laugh if it wasn't going to cost my life.

  "Attach it to something that you can use to reach me," I said.

  Koryak grew still for a moment, before he struggled against the space, producing a length of sausage. He wrapped the rope around the long sausage and shoved it towards me. It took a few tries, but eventually I was able to get the rope.

  "I ruin good sausage for you," he said.

  Using my other hand, I made a loop with the rope. I couldn't dig anymore, but I could at least hook it to the quillion. As I struggled to get the rope around the crosspiece, I realized that the light in our cave had gotten dimmer. The sun was going down and with it our chances of survival. Even if we got out now, we were cold and wet and a long way from shelter.

  After the tenth or twentieth try—my hand hand hurt so much I'd lost track—I told Koryak to help me pull.

  "Why pull?" he asked.

  "Does it matter? Just pull when I tell you to," I said, adding a few curses in Russian at the end.

  Once he responded, I counted out: "One, two, NOW!"

  I had to use my other hand to get enough leverage to yank on the rope. The rapier was stuck, and I didn't think we would get it out.

  "Pull!" I yelled.

  The rope slipped a little, and I was afraid it would fly off the quillion before moving the rapier even a millimeter.

  "Pull!" I screamed until my face was bursting.

  Right before I was ready to give up, the rapier shifted. Encouraged by the movement, we kept pulling until it finally slipped free of the mud.

  "Thank you," I said. "Good job."

  "What we do?" asked Koryak, who was shivering a little.

  "Gave us a chance of getting out. A small one, but a chance," I said.

  After taking off my other glove, I reached behind me, feeling for the right place in the rock. To my great relief, there was a little indentation and enough space to fit the guard.

  I set the retracted rapier into the space. Once I hit the pommel, it was going to do one of a few things. Extend and dig directly into the boulder. Extend and push out of the cradle, possibly slicing off my fingers. Get trapped by the boulder and not extend, thus breaking the oestium blade. Or extend and push the boulder up enough that I could wiggle out.

  I didn't like my chances, but I had to try.

  "For the Society," I whispered, and slammed the pommel against the rock.

  At first I thought it'd failed, but then the weight lifted from my hips and released from my legs. Peering behind me, I could tell the rapier had extended a little bit, digging into the boulder and pushing it upward a few inches.

  Before it could fail and trap me again, I wiggled backwards until I was out of the hole. Before Koryak could crawl out, I thought about reaching in and tugging the rapier loose, trapping him. It was the Russian thing to do.

  I watched quietly as Koryak crawled out moments later.

  The sun had gone behind the hills, and we were bathed in freezing darkness. I reached into the hole and tried to unjam my rapier, but it was stuck in position, trapped in the boulder.

  When I stood back up, I felt a sharp object against my side.

  "You are mine, again," he said.

  "You're welcome for getting out," I said, rubbing my frozen hands. "Now it's your turn to make sure we don't freeze to death."

  In the dim light, Koryak smiled, his black lips fading into darkness. I didn't think I was going to like his solution.

  Chapter Six

  Koryak made me crawl back into the hole and gather the backpacks. I thought about trying to free the rapier, but had no desire to be stuck again. I was shivering madly by the time I came back out. I gave him his backpack and slipped mine over my shoulders.

  "Make a f-fire now?" I asked, lips quivering.

  "Fire dangerous," he said, rubbing his arms and bouncing up and down to warm himself. "Dragon or other things might come to investigate."

  My hands were bricks. Painful bricks that I couldn't even move. I shook them a few times, but that hurt more than doing nothing.

  "I'd rather chance a fire than freeze to death," I said.

  Koryak hadn't been digging in the wet mud, so he didn't feel it as bad. A large bird made hunting noises from further in the valley. Koryak quirked a smile and turned towards the sound. He cupped his hands around his mouth and made what sounded like an owl's hoot.

  After exchanging a few more messages, we waited. The rest of the party that had captured us appeared out of the dim. Rowan was with them, but her hands weren't bound, nor did she act like she was a captive. The only things that indicated the difference between her and the others were her fine clothes and the way they kept a watchful eye on her.

  Rowan met my gaze and winked. She was in good spirits at least.

  Koryak and the big warrior spoke for a while in their language, gesturing frequently at the destruction around the field of boulders. They used the Slavic word for dragon a few times.

  Then they switched to a discussion about me. I could tell by the way the others kept looking in my direction that Koryak was telling the story of our escape from the boulders. I stood and quietly shivered.

  At the end of the story, the woman with steel blue eyes and twin scars appeared before me. She grabbed my hands. I thought she was going to bind them, but she tugged my wet gloves off and slipped new ones on. My hands were so frozen I couldn't even move them. I felt like a child.

  Koryak appeared by the woman's side. "Haida will run with you so no escape. Outpost not far if you want warm and fire."

  Shivering, I nodded. He was right. There was no point in trying to escape now. I'd freeze to death alone.

  We took off in an easterly direction. The horizon was a faint blue, and in the valley the darkness was complete. I tried to catch a glimpse of the dragon signs as we passed by the destruction, but it was too dark.

  Running helped regulate my shivering, keeping it to my lips. I needed to strip out of my wet clothes and huddle by a warm fire, but I didn't know if that was going to happen.

  With leaden hands and tired limbs, I marched behind Haida, keeping my eye on her heels so I didn't stumble. We ran for about a half hour.

  Then we stopped, and Haida appeared in front of me. She placed a blindfold on my head. As if it wasn't dark enough. The pace slowed down after that.

  Haida had to hold onto my arm, because I winced when she tried to grab my hand. I was afraid I'd done permanent damage to them from digging in the cold mud.

  We walked for another hour or so. I lost track of time in the darkness. I was ready to collapse into a heap when I heard our footsteps echo. Then I saw the faint flickers of firelight against the blindfold. We entered a cave.

  Haida removed the blindfold, and Koryak appeared once more at my side. "Do not escape, or we kill you."

  The firelight made me squint after the long period of darkness. Rowan was stand
ing nearby, rubbing her eyes. The cave was about ten meters wide and went further back than the light revealed. Near the front, the cave narrowed. It looked like partitions blocked the light from escaping outside and exposing their hidden location.

  About twenty warriors huddled around the fire in the cave. The tables and supplies stacked around the area revealed the length of time they'd been using the cave.

  Since no one was holding onto me, I moved next to the crackling fire, crouching down to warm my hands and face. Rowan joined me. I was surprised by our freedom until I saw Haida standing back watching us with her arms crossed.

  "Remember, no escape," said Koryak, then he moved away, towards a knot of men and women at the back.

  "Are you well?" asked Rowan, concern in her tone.

  "Better with the fire, but I might have damaged my hands," I said.

  "If we are given an opportunity to use magic, I will try to heal them, but for now I'm not willing to risk it," she said.

  "A wise choice," I said. "I just wish they would stop aching."

  Rowan tugged the gloves off my hands. "Let me take a look at them."

  I heard her gasp when she looked at them in the firelight. They were puffy and red, more like pink gloves stuffed with hay than actual hands. The flesh had split in a few locations on my right hand, the one that had been in the cold mud the longest. When she touched my skin I whimpered.

  "They are worse than I thought," she said. "You have frostbite. If we do not heal them soon, then you might lose your hands, or at the very least your fingers."

  "What?"

  The words tumbled from my lips, unbelieving. I knew it was possible, I'd just hoped that I'd gotten them warm in time.

  I started to rub them together, but Rowan stopped me. "Be careful. You might injure them further. Stay here and warm them. I will try to speak to Koryak and find out if it's safe here for magic."

  "Are you sure that it's wise to let them know what you can do?" I asked.

  "You have no choice," said Rowan. The graveness of her expression shook me.

  I stared at my hands as I held them out to the heat. Rowan tried to move away from the fire, but Haida stepped in her way, revealing a long knife.